He Changed the Lock to His Own Phone Number and Forged My Dead Wife’s Signature on the Deed. He Forgot She’d Put the Cabin in a Trust

Under questioning, that notary admitted Shawn had paid him sixty-five hundred dollars, under the table, to notarize signatures that had never once been made in his presence — including the signature of a woman three years dead.

But the thing that chilled me to the bone was not the deed, or the loan, or even the money.

It was a set of chat records between Shawn and Greg, discussing, in plain language, how an elderly property owner could be maneuvered into a legal guardianship if the family manufactured enough evidence that he was confused.

They had been studying it.

Reading up on it.